How to use a domain that is owned by someone else?

What are the possibilities besides buying and lease-to-own arrangement?

[elord]

Hello,
I found a domain name that would fit pretty good to my website. (right now I'm using only a subdomain of an ISP)
Unfortunately, that domain name is already registered, but it is not in use.
So, I decided to contact the registrar. He then made an offer to either buy that domain or to do lease-to-own arrangement. I mean, I appreciate that he made me an offer, unfortunately, the price for the domain is way too much for me. (I'm a student.)

Has anybody got another idea to do a fair deal?
I'm thinking about something like the registrar of that domain links his domain to my website and I promote that domain name and put a link to the registrar website or something. That way I don't need to invest that much money. But it may be fair for both parties.

I hope ya'll know what I mean. Thanks for any advice.

[globay]

He is the owner, so he has all the rights on this domain name, thus he can decide on his own how to sell or lease the domain.

I would recommend you to look for a new, not registered domain name. It is not only cheaper to acquire, but also for the following reason recommendable:

"I'm thinking about something like the registrar of that domain links his domain to my website and I promote that domain name and put a link to the registrar website or something."

This might be a cheap way to use the domain name, but consider, that you won't own the domain. All your incoming links will be pointed to a domain that you don't own. You will have a "brand" name that you don't own. You will be promoting the domain that you don't own, thus making it even more valuable for the owner.

Let's say the owner decides some time, that he no longer want's to link to your page. What happens then? All your efforts to get links will be gone!

Or let's say, you earn a lot of money with your site, and then you wan't to buy the domain. The owner can then pretty much dictate the price, since you made it far more valuable, and he knows that you then depend on the name.

And it is also not very good for SEO, considering backlinks and PR.

Try to get a unique name! Build your own brand, and have domain name!

Hope that helps,

--
globay

[davemarks]

My best advice would simply be to register a new domain.

New domains are less than a tenner for a co.uk (2 years) and less than Ģ15 (1 year) for .com .net etc

If the domain you have found is keyword1keyword2.suffix try registering keyword1-keyword2.suffix etc etc

If you want to Sticky me the domain name I will have a look and see what alternatives are available for you.... and provide you some idea/alternatives

[elord]

globay,
thanks for your response.
You're right, that's what I didn't like about my "cheap solution". It would definitive be too dangerous for me to use a domain name that actually is owned by someone else. He can take that domain off my site any time he wants to, and then my website would be pretty much offline.

The thing is that I already thought a lot about a appropriate domain name. All kinds of names that would fit good to my site are already taken. So I decided to contact the registrar of that domain which would simple be the best for my site.

davemarks,
thanks for your response, too.
I know, the easiest way to acquire a domain name would be to take a domain name that has not been registered yet.

I think it is the best and the easiest thing to get a domain name that fits 100% to your site. So far, I know about some domains that are available, but they don't fit that good to my site as the ones that already have been registered.

Actually I think, the success of my site will pretty much depend on its domain name. (I really do have a lot of reasons, why I think so.)
So I just don't want to get an available domain that kind of fits to my site, since that doesn't help me much when I got a domain name, but my site won't really be "successful".

By the way, I'm talking about .com domains.

Well, thanks again for the reponses. I guess, I just need to keep looking for some available domains.

davemarks, thank you for your offer to help me to find an appropriate domain. I would have to tell you a lot about my site and its concept to give you an idea about my site and what domain name would fit. So I guess, I better first see if I find a domain on my own, before I start to write down all my thoughts about my site. ;-)

<edit>corrected: "every time" to "any time", thanks to andreasfriedrich who made me aware of that huge mistake ;-)
BTW, I'm from Germany, so there may be more than one mistake in grammar/vocabulary or content.</edit>

[edited by: elord at 2:11 pm (utc) on Mar. 29, 2003]

[andreasfriedrich]

>>He can take that domain off my site every time he wants
>>to

Sorry, but I couldnīt resist.

;-) I believe he can do it only once, since if he took it away from you he cannot do it again even if he wanted to without giving it back first. Thus he can take that domain off your site any time but not every time he wants to. ;-)

Andreas

[davemarks]

LOL

Globay hadn't posted when I started to reply - made mine pointless :(

I didn't mean to sound patronising, but sometimes people forget the obvious, or those that are less clued up on the subject....

Well you get the idea. The offer still stands all the same

I don't think you should put so much emphesis on the domain name, or at least start with something less relevent (Get you away from that nasty ISP's subdomain which isn't very professional) Then when you have more clout and/or money you could go chasing that ideal domain again...

Thats just my opinion though... :)

Good Luck

[elord]

Get you away from that nasty ISP's subdomain which isn't very professional

davemarks,
you just helped me with another thing I have been wondering about. So you think, too, that it is unprofessional to have a ISP's subdomain.
Sometimes I have been wondering if I actually do need to get a toplevel domain, or if I don't just keep my site running under a subdomain. Because, right now, my subdomain is actually not bad regarding keywords included in toplevel and sub -domain. It is also doing pretty good in SEs. But I think so, too, that it doesn't seem very professional to a user and that a subdomain address is neither easy to remember nor brandable.

[globay]

I am just wondering if the domain name can be that valuable when you even consider staying with your subdomain. This is really unprofessional. Domain name registration has become so cheap, that it is really worth doing it for a project of any size.

Maybe you should look for a different TLD to get the name you wanted. Try .net or .[country TLD] if you really depend on that one domain name, if not go for a different name, preferrably with a .com TLD.

--
globay

[davemarks]

Thats another good point. Just because you can't get you most favourite name on .com don't let that stop you.

Like Globay says, try .net etc etc

ISP subdomains are seriouly unprofessional, because in short, anybody who has an internet connection probably has a subdomain or directory with free hosting on their ISP

So who are you compared to every other Joe in the street?

[elord]

I tried different TLDs. But all are gone.
Well, I try to take another domain name that is not taken yet.
Thank you for your responses.

And I guess, I need to start a new thread, since I got another question concerning a domain names ... :-)

**Great Forum**

[piskie]

A new domain name is the only option worth considering.

If you can't get the exact word/words that you want, just remember, probably the most successful selling site in the world is Amazon and the word Amazon has nothing at all to do with books.